Sri Ramana Maharshi
D.: What is your quest? What is the goal? How far have you progressed?
M.: The goal is the same for all. But tell me why you should be in search of a goal? Why are you not content with the present condition?
D.: Is there then no goal?
M.: Not so. What makes you seek a goal? It is a counter-question to be answered by you.
D.: I have my own ideas of these subjects. I want to know what Maharshi has to say.
M.: Maharshi has no doubts to be cleared.
D.: Well, I consider the goal to be the realisation by the lower mind of the higher mind so that the Kingdom of Heaven might endure here on earth. The lower mind is incomplete and it must be made
perfect by realisation of the higher mind.
M.: So then you admit a lower mind which is incomplete and which seeks realisation of the higher so that it may become perfect. Is that lower mind apart from the higher mind? Is it independent of the other?
D.: The Kingdom of Heaven was brought down on Earth by Jesus Christ. I consider Him to be the Kingdom personified. I want everyone to realise the same. He said: “I am hungry with other men’s hunger;” and so on. Mutual partnership in pleasure and pain is the Kingdom of Heaven. If that Kingdom is universalised everyone will feel at one with the rest.
M.: You speak of the differences between the lower and the higher minds, pleasures and pains. What becomes of these differences in your sleep?
D.: But I want to be wide awake.
M.: Is this your wide awakened state? It is not. It is only a dream in your long sleep. All are in sleep, dreaming of the world and things and actions.
D.: This is all Vedantic, I have no use for it. The existing differences are not imaginary. They are positive. However, what is that real waking? Can Maharshi tell us what he has found it to be?
M.: Real waking lies beyond the three states of waking, dream and sleep.
D.: I am really awake and know that I am not in sleep.
M.: Real waking lies beyond the plane of differences.
D.: What is the state of the world then?
M.: Does the world come and tell you “I exist”?
D.: No. But the people in the world tell me that the world needs spiritual, social and moral regeneration.
M.: You see the world and the people in it. They are your thoughts. Can the world be apart from you?
D.: I enter into it with love.
M.: Before entering thus do you stand aloof?
D.: I am identified with it and yet remaining apart. Now I came here to ask Maharshi and hear him. Why does he ask me questions?
M.: Maharshi has replied. His reply amounts to this: Real waking does not involve differences.
D.: Can such realisation be universalised?
M.: Where are differences there? There are no individuals in it.
D.: Have you reached the goal?
M.: The goal cannot be anything apart from the Self nor can it be something to be gained afresh. If that were so, such goal cannot be abiding and permanent. What appears anew will also disappear. The goal must be eternal and within. Find it within yourself.
(To be continued)
D.: What is your quest? What is the goal? How far have you progressed?
M.: The goal is the same for all. But tell me why you should be in search of a goal? Why are you not content with the present condition?
D.: Is there then no goal?
M.: Not so. What makes you seek a goal? It is a counter-question to be answered by you.
D.: I have my own ideas of these subjects. I want to know what Maharshi has to say.
M.: Maharshi has no doubts to be cleared.
D.: Well, I consider the goal to be the realisation by the lower mind of the higher mind so that the Kingdom of Heaven might endure here on earth. The lower mind is incomplete and it must be made
perfect by realisation of the higher mind.
M.: So then you admit a lower mind which is incomplete and which seeks realisation of the higher so that it may become perfect. Is that lower mind apart from the higher mind? Is it independent of the other?
D.: The Kingdom of Heaven was brought down on Earth by Jesus Christ. I consider Him to be the Kingdom personified. I want everyone to realise the same. He said: “I am hungry with other men’s hunger;” and so on. Mutual partnership in pleasure and pain is the Kingdom of Heaven. If that Kingdom is universalised everyone will feel at one with the rest.
M.: You speak of the differences between the lower and the higher minds, pleasures and pains. What becomes of these differences in your sleep?
D.: But I want to be wide awake.
M.: Is this your wide awakened state? It is not. It is only a dream in your long sleep. All are in sleep, dreaming of the world and things and actions.
D.: This is all Vedantic, I have no use for it. The existing differences are not imaginary. They are positive. However, what is that real waking? Can Maharshi tell us what he has found it to be?
M.: Real waking lies beyond the three states of waking, dream and sleep.
D.: I am really awake and know that I am not in sleep.
M.: Real waking lies beyond the plane of differences.
D.: What is the state of the world then?
M.: Does the world come and tell you “I exist”?
D.: No. But the people in the world tell me that the world needs spiritual, social and moral regeneration.
M.: You see the world and the people in it. They are your thoughts. Can the world be apart from you?
D.: I enter into it with love.
M.: Before entering thus do you stand aloof?
D.: I am identified with it and yet remaining apart. Now I came here to ask Maharshi and hear him. Why does he ask me questions?
M.: Maharshi has replied. His reply amounts to this: Real waking does not involve differences.
D.: Can such realisation be universalised?
M.: Where are differences there? There are no individuals in it.
D.: Have you reached the goal?
M.: The goal cannot be anything apart from the Self nor can it be something to be gained afresh. If that were so, such goal cannot be abiding and permanent. What appears anew will also disappear. The goal must be eternal and within. Find it within yourself.
(To be continued)
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